Demi-Gods

A bold debut novel for fans of Emma Cline's The Girls and Edan Lepucki's California--a story of love, lust, and the spaces in between, from a "captivating" (NYTBR) new voice in fiction.

It is 1950, and nine-year-old Willa's sheltered childhood is about to come to an end. After Willa's dad leaves, her mother's beau arrives with his two sons to her family's summer home in British Columbia. As Willa's older sister pairs off with the older of these boys, Willa finds herself alone in the off-kilter company of the younger, Patrick. When, one afternoon, Patrick lures Willa into a dilapidated rowboat, Willa embarks upon an increasingly damaging relationship with Patrick, one that will forever reconfigure her understanding of herself and her place in a menacing, male-dominated world.

Demi-Gods traces the tumultuous years of Willa's coming-of-age as she is drawn further into Patrick's wicked games, and as both are drawn to the seductive promise of California. Though they see each other only a handful of times, each of their encounters is increasingly charged with sexuality and degradation. When Willa finally realizes the danger of her relationship with Patrick, she desperately tries to reverse their dynamic, with devastating results.

Daring, singular, and provocative, Demi-Gods explores a girl's attempt to make a life of her own choosing in a world where women's independence is suspect, a world that threatens to claim a woman's body as a mere object for men's pleasure. A sensitive, playful, and entirely original evocation of the dualities within ourselves and our history, Eliza Robertson's debut novel announces the arrival of one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary literature.

Eliza Robertson studied creative writing at the University of Victoria and the University of East Anglia, where she received the Man Booker Scholarship and Curtis Brown Prize. In 2013, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was shortlisted for the Journey Prize and CBC Short Story Prize. Her debut collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book Award, Danuta Gleed Short Story Prize, and selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice. Most recently, she is the winner of the Australian Book Review Elizabeth Jolley Prize. She lives in Norwich, England.